Georg August Schweinfurth

Georg August Schweinfurth (December 29th 1836 with Rīga - September 19th 1925 with Berlin), is a botanist and German ethnologist. After having studied in several universities (Heidelberg, Munich and Berlin) it is invested in the Botanique and the Paléontologie.

Charged with classifying the ramnenées collections of the Sudan by Freiherr von Barnim and Dr. Hartmann, it was interested in this African area. In 1863 it undertakes a voyage along the coasts of the Red Sea, goes to Khartoum and returns to Europe in 1866. Its research arouses the interest of Humboldt-Stiftung of Berlin and one sends it in 1868 for an important scientific expedition in the interior of the Africa of the east.

Its tour leads it Khartoum to Bahr-el-Ghazal while following the the white Nile, then in company of ivory merchants it crosses the areas inhabited by Diur (Dyoor), Dinka, Bongo and Niam-Niam. It enters then the country of Mangbettu (Monbuttu) and discovers the river Welle (on March 19th, 1870), which does not form part of the catchment area of the Nile.

Schweinfurth largely made evolve/move knowledge that one has inhabitants, fauna and flora of central Africa. It described in detail the practices cannibals of Mangbettu, and its discovery of the Akka Pygmies put a term at the debate on the existence of men of small size in Africa. The account of its forwarding was published in Im Herzen von Afrika (Leipzig, 1874; English edition, The Heart off Africa , 1873, new edition in 1878).

In 1873-1874 it accompanies Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs (1831-1896) in her forwarding through the desert Libyen.

Installed with the Cairo in 1875, it creates a foundation for the geography, under the auspices of Khedive Ismail, and is devoted exclusively to the historical and ethnological study of Africa.

In company of Paul Güssfeldt (1840-1920), it penetrates in the Arabian desert, and continues its explorations until in 1888 (in particular of the botanical and geological observations with Fayoum, in the valley of the Nile). The following year it goes back food to Berlin, but will still set out again to visit the Érythrée (then Italian colony) in 1891,1892 and 1894.

Bibliographical orientation

max Linke (1977). Georg Schweinfurth und center Wirken als Geograph, Petermanns geographische Mitteilungen , 121 : 247-251.

Random links: